Path of the Shura
by The BlackStaff and NightMarE
Summary: Through action, a Man becomes a Hero. Through death, a Hero becomes a Legend. Through time, a Legend becomes a Myth. And by learning from the Myth, a Man takes action. Follow the path of Emiya Shirou, created because of the actions of a certain cursed Magus Killer. AU. .
1. Amidst the Flames

He had lost.

Eight years. Eight years of diligent study and analysis into the mystery involved in creation and functioning of the construct known as the Holy Grail had yielded nothing. Regardless of its design and mystery involved, the superficial procedure was remarkably simple. Summon the servants. Kill the servants. On their demise, the heroic spirits would change into pure mana and enter the Grail system, activating its main function as a _wish-granter, _based on the powers and abilities of one Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern, who had sacrificed herself to become the core of the Greater Grail. Once enough servants had been killed, the Grail would be able to grant two wishes—one for the master, and one for the servant. That was the official statement. The real thing though, was slightly more complicated.

As far as wish-granting was concerned, they belonged to two types. The first were wishes that were within the span and powers of the world in general, and did not involve evocation of a mystery greater than Gaia or Alaya. On sacrificing six servants, the Grail was able to grant two such wishes—one for the servant, and one for the master, bringing the war to a successful completion.

The second type of wishes, well, they fell into the esoteric category, and involved mysteries that were greater than what Gaia or Alaya could perform, or even allow. Reaching the Akashic Records, or Root, as magi generally called it—fell into this category. The Reactivation of the lost Third Magic too, fell into this category. Should _all seven _servants be killed in the war, only then could the Grail fulfil a single wish—for the master of course. The general idea for this was that the last command seal remaining, could be used to ask the servant to commit suicide, using the chance to have this _unlimited wish _fulfilled.

Ever since he had come to know about these intricate details of the Grail system, he had imagined two possible outcomes.

The first was that he would have to eliminate six masters and their servants, and activate the Greater Grail. It would not allow for the activation of the Third Magic—an unfortunate thing really, but it would be enough to allow his own quest for _salvation of humanity. _Yes, that would involve betraying the Einzbern, but hey, he was being completely serious when he had stated that he would be willing to accept _all the evils of humanity _if it meant that humanity would be saved.

The second option was using his two remaining command seals to force Saber into committing suicide, something that would automatically trigger the Greater Grail, and open up a path to Akasha—a little too brutish for his tastes but Magi were what they were, and revive the Third Magic—Heaven's Feel. It would not fulfil Kiritsugu's own desire, nor provide any meaning to Irisviel's and Maiya's deaths, but the Einzbern would get their long-wished achievement.

Bottom line—there had always been one option. The first one, and nothing else. There was betrayal involved, but the scales were too high to be considered.

Now though, there was a third option, and ironically, it would lead to nothing but defeat for both of them. He Kiritsugu would not get his desires granted, Humanity would not attain salvation, the path to the Third Magic would be lost forever, and Irisviel and Maiya's deaths would have gone in absolute vain. Everything that the other masters, the summoned heroic spirits had endured and fought for, would be meaningless. Saber's thoughts about Kiritsugu's nature as a monster would be proved correct.

_But everyone else on the planet would survive._

The irony! He had entered the war, and endured losses, one after another, in hope for the prize at the end of the road. And here it was, the end—the prize, wanting to be claimed by him, and he had rejected it. It had cursed him with its dying breath, but it didn't matter. There were more important things to deal with right now. Angra Mainyu's curse could wait.

Kiritsugu Emiya let out a sigh.

He had left Kirei Kotomine fallen in the basement, a .30-06 Springfield bullet through the head, the body drenched amidst the hideous black substance that had poured out of the Holy Grail, and was possibly part of Avenger's aborted state. The fool had demanded to be given the Grail, and allow Angra Mainyu to be reborn into the world, and had turned outright hysterical at the end. Come to think of it, he should have taken care of Kotomine earlier into the war. It would have certainly prevented a lot of bad things from happening.

Tokiomi Tohsaka was dead, killed using a dagger. Kiritsugu was no genius, but there was an off-chance that Kotomine had been the one to form a pact with Archer after Tokiomi's death. There was no need to go deeper into the issue. It was meaningless and over, and by the look of things, Archer should fade away very soon.

He breathed in deeply. Only one operation left unfinished.

He entered into the theatre room of the Shinto City Hall, only to overhear Archer's narcissistic remarks, offering Saber to be his queen. Even from the distance, he could see the Gate of Babylon opened, with several noble phantasms held out, ready to be projected out at tremendous velocity. Gilgamesh was, Kiritsugu mused, an unfairly overpowered heroic spirit. He took another look at Saber, who had fallen down on top of the stairs, with two swords impaling her knees, her own sword shining with all its glory.

_There is a good chance that Gilgamesh will take me out at first sight. I will have to make it as quick as possible. Time Alter can only do so much against someone like that._

He raised his right hand, as the strange red sigils glowed with an ethereal power.

Saber felt the power surging through the command spells and looked up, her eyes filled with hope, despite the weapons from the Gate of Babylon tearing into her. "Kirit…sugu…" she murmured in hope.

"Ah", Gilgamesh responded, unaware of Kiritsugu's presence. Either that, or he had plain disregarded the man. "So, you have finally made your decision."

Kiritsugu didn't bother with it. He had never really been one to put his own life on a higher pedestal than others. It was now or never. He lifted his hand upward, the command spells shining brightly, and he spoke. "In the name of Kiritsugu Emiya, and by my command spells-"

Saber lurched a little closer, anticipating and _wishing _for a command to win. A command to grant her master, the Holy Grail.

"—I order you, use your Noble Phantasm. Destroy the Grail."

Saber lurched back, incomprehension and disbelief latched onto her face. The winds around her blade began to swirl with new-found sense of purpose, gathering a golden light as her noble phantasm—the sword of promised victory, empowered her to achieve the same for her master.

"What?" Archer yelled, seemingly shocked at such a turn of events. There was no way that Saber, who wanted the Grail so badly that she was ready to die for it, would ever-"What are you doing, Saber?"

And then, the King of Heroes heard the command flow in, this time, with a more distinct sense of purpose.

"By my third command spell," Kiritsugu enforced, "I order you again." He ignored the repeated, hysterical 'NO' from his servant. "Saber. Destroy, the Holy Grail-"

"You dare disrupt my nuptials, mongrel?" Gilgamesh snarled, the Gates firing multiple noble phantasms at Kiritsugu, only for the latter to use Time manipulation to pull himself out of the way.

"Why Kiritsugu?" Saber begged, her hands automatically moving up, lifting Excalibur as it shone with the brightest light. "Why you? You of all people? Why this?"

"—Now!"

The blade came down, and with it, the power of the most destructive anti-fortress noble phantasm in existence. In a matter of seconds, the entire city hall had collapsed into a mountain of rubble, with Kiritsugu barely able to get out of in time. If not for the Time Alteration, he would have perished inside.

He sighed. His heart beat valiantly, he had survived the crash, and by the looks of it, no one had survived. With the use of all three command spells, Saber had likely faded away from existence, as had the Archer-class servant, and the manifested Grail vessel. It was over. The End… was over.

And then, he looked up, and his eyes stuck, shocked at the sight in front of his very eyes. No words came out of his throat, and he could only gape at the horrifying monstrosity that had just appeared, tearing through the heavens above him.

_This_… _this is impossible. This is… How is this POSSIBLE?_

The clouds had parted, revealing a monstrous hole in the centre, pulsing with an alien, malevolent presence, and despite the distance, Kiritsugu could feel the utter wrongness it was filled with. Tearing through the heavens, the entity pulsed for the last time, before propelling out a wave of energy outward, as if some mystical seal had been broken.

And _all the evils of humanity _rained down to the Earth, manifested in the form of hot, corrosive, cursed mud—down into the rubble that was the City Hall, pouring out of it, burning every inch of matter it touched. It was almost like watching a volcano shoot out hellfire from underneath, only this time, the hellfire was being belched out through the hell-hole in the sky.

"This… how is this even possible?" Kiritsugu yelled out in frustration. He had refused Angra Mainyu, killed its prenatal form inside the Grail, and destroyed the vessel. There was no way that-

_**THEN GIVE THE DAMN THING TO ME! YOU MAY THINK YOU MIGHT NOT NEED IT! BUT I MOST CERTAINLY DO! IF IT IS GIVEN THE LIFE IT IS SEEKING, THEN IT MAY SURELY ANSWER MY EVERY DOUBT, AND FINALLY BRING EVERYTHING TO CLARITY! THE GRAIL LONGS FOR A LIFE OF ITS OWN! LONGS FOR ITS OWN BIRTH! PLEASE, DON'T KILL IT! DON'T-**_

The answer revealed itself to his eyes. Kotomine… He had been the other victor of the Grail war, and while Angra Mainyu had chosen Kiritsugu as its optimum vessel, it had turned to Kirei upon rejection. After all, hadn't Kirei stated how he had been through the same dream-cycle he himself had?

He looked down at the fallen rubble, now drenched and burning amidst the black mud pouring out of the hell-hole. This was what Kotomine had asked for. The Executor had died at his hands, but had been the victor nevertheless. If that wasn't irony, then what is?

And now this… this was the result.

Kiritsugu Emiya let out a howl of despair, as the world around him, burned.

And he jumped off the bridge, past the burning buildings, past the scorched lawns, past the streets and the cries of people _dissolving _into the corrosion that only expanded outward. Surely there was someone, anyone… anyone that was still alive and could be saved, saved from this monstrosity… someone in the entire dead zone that might have survived this annihilation… someone….

His mind had already jammed shut, his eyes drowsy, as he walked past the melting furnace that was Shinto District, amidst all the pain, all the loss, all the curses Angra Mainyu had wrought upon the very world that created it. He turned to his right and-

And he stood still, unable to comprehend the sight in front of his eyes.

The hell-hole had stopped pouring out the corrosive mud into the world, and now, standing right below it, was Kirei Kotomine. Clean and healed, like the events of the past hour hadn't even happened in the first place.

And Kotomine laughed. Heartily. It was the laugh of the man who had discovered the meaning of the most hilarious joke he had ever heard. It was the laugh of a man who had just been hit by good news he had never even expected. It was the laugh of a man who had finally, found something of worth in his own life.

Kiritsugu felt his arms droop, as he mindlessly turned away. He had lost everything, he had failed everyone—Irisviel, Maiya, the inhabitants of the city… everyone. It was only fitting that Kirei Kotomine would stay on, and he, Kiritsugu Emiya, fall and die in the very mud that had taken the lives of so many people he had failed to save. Yes, that looked incredibly fitting for a man who had done nothing but kill and kill and kill and kill all his life. It was better than-

Thud!

In hindsight, Kiritsugu would wonder how he had heard the soft sound from his distance, when the rest of the world felt muted from his ears. Perhaps it was destiny, perhaps some cruel twist of the world, or perhaps Angra Mainyu's curse, he did not know. All he knew was that there was someone out there… someone _alive, _and that was all that mattered.

He climbed atop the broken wall, jumping off into the charred grass beneath, only to find a little child—his hair just as crimson as the raging flames—a child of mere seven or eight, barely managing to keep his eyes open. There was a massive dash just above his left eye, with blood pouring down, inundating half of his face with a crimson hue, though it was his right eye that concerned Kiritsugu more. There were no bruises or gashes as far as Kiritsugu could notice, but blood seemed to trickle from the right eye, probably from a case of haemorrhage, though of course, the location was rather peculiar. As if in recognition, the boy raised his hand, using every inch of his remaining effort, towards Kiritsugu, begging him to help him get up.

And help him he did. It was wrong, it felt wrong! It was utterly wrong to feel that overwhelming sense of joy in his heart, but that was the only emotion Kiritsugu Emiya could feel. He, who had killed all his life to save humanity, was now crying tears of happiness at the simple chance of saving a single soul when an entire community had perished. His mouth opened on his own, laughing hysterically as he did, pulling the boy's hands into his chest, crying out. "You are alive… you are alive… Thank you!" He rubbed the boy's hand into his cheeks. "I'm so glad that I found you... I'm so glad that I found you."

The child coughed out blood, splattering the crimson liquid all over his face, but nothing could diminish Kiritsugu's new found hope. This boy, this single soul, this he would save. He would protect him with all his might.

And he dug his fingers into his own chest, and what he pulled out… was Hope.

Avalon.

The fabled scabbard of King Arthur. The scabbard that had saved Irisviel once, and had been instrumental in keeping Kiritsugu alive up till now. The same healing artefact that had regenerated his skewed heart, and was still perpetually healing his body from the effects of the battle. The gold and blue scabbard shone brightly in his hands, as he extracted it out from himself, feeling the effects of Angra Mainyu's curse sink in, but he did not pay it any mind. He disassembled the scabbard, implanting it into the boy. It hadn't been long since Saber had faded away, so the Scabbard must at least have some power left. He hoped it would be enough to save the little child.

The moment Avalon was inserted into the child, his entire body seemed to glow for a second, before a massive flux of mana registered in the Magus Killer's eyes, who placed his palms onto the boy's chest, supplying him with mana to increase Avalon's efficiency. The wounds slowly stopped oozing blood, his heart rate turned to normal, and the bruises began to slowly rejuvenate, as fresh skin clotted the existing contusions.

Kiritsugu laughed. It was ironic that he would find his atonement in saving a single kid when he had been partly responsible for doing whatever happened to him in the first place. But… but it was almost like… in saving the boy, he himself had been saved that night.

* * *

**Three days later.**

Kiritsugu walked into the hospital ward, ignoring the phantom pains all over his person. Come to think of it, he had registered the pains immediately after pulling Avalon out of his person, to embed it inside the boy. He wasn't a traditional magus, and even then, he would at best qualify as a second-rate one, and a spellcaster at best. There weren't many disciplines of magecraft that he had acquired over his years under Natalia's tutelage. He had few skills, but whatever he knew, he knew them best.

"Structural analysis. Set."

The moment he muttered the little aria, his magic circuits heated up, and with them, came a searing pain flitting through his nerves, that nearly made him lose control of all his senses and fall down to the ground, but he managed to hold himself straight by latching the wall to his right. The spell didn't fully achieve what he wanted it to, but at least, it hadn't been a complete waste. He had gotten a couple of inferences out of the experiment.

He had no internal physiological damage, no bones broken, no mana deprivation. And yet, using even a single magic circuit made his nerves to flare up in pain. That had just one single inference—the curse would create phantom pains even at the slightest usage of his circuits.

_Wonderful. _Kiritsugu cursed inwardly. _Performing magecraft at the price of withstanding physical pain. My trophy for winning the war._

"At least I still have my Od to go ahead with the most basics of tasks." He murmured to himself, walking towards the last cubicle adjacent to the wall. Without any preamble, he entered past the curtains, catching the little redheaded resident off-guard, who let out a sudden ACK at his sudden entrance.

"Hi," Kiritsugu spoke in a throaty tone. "You must be—you must be Shirou."

The redhead, now that he had a closer look, seemed to be heterochromatic, with the left eye having a bright silver pupil, while the right one held an unholy crimson hue to it. He suppressed the strange feeling of _violation _at staring at those eyes, a sensation that quickly vanished as the boy turned to look away, drooping his eyelids slightly as if out of exhaustion. Sitting against the wall on the four-poster hospital bed, with his hands covered up with bandages and two ligatures on the left side of his forehead, the redhead nodded his head slowly. Had Kiritsugu been more alert, he would have noticed that the kid seemed to do his best not to stare at him.

Or at anything else in general.

"You might not remember me, but I found you back at the—well, in the rubble, and got you here. The doctors told me that you're Shirou, though they didn't give me a family name."

The redhead—Shirou, continued to look down at the white covers of the bed, covering him up to the waist, and then shifting to look at the condition of his bandages and then to something else. It was almost like he had the attention span of a goldfish, only that such a thing would be incredibly unsuited to the present situation. His lips twisted slightly, and though Kiritsugu could not see his eyes, the boy's countenance held an expression that was part-curiosity and part-confusion.

_Is there something wrong with my attire? _Kiritsugu wondered. He was dressed in his usual black suit, with his equally black trench coats and boots, and carried a black suitcase, in which he had a copy of discharge papers. Adding a little more sense of purpose in his tone, he continued. "I suppose I'll go straight ahead and ask you, if you'd prefer, being sent off to an orphanage."

That provoked a reaction from the redhead, as he widened his eyes, before shaking his head vigorously. His lips opened and closed several times, before turning away towards the wall, as if in disappointment.

_Can he even talk? For that matter, how did the medics even know his name?_

"Well, the other option is for you to be adopted by a man you just met."

Another momentary blank stare.

Kiritsugu rubbed the tip of his nose in slight exasperation. Not even Illyasviel was this difficult to deal with, and she was rather… flighty, for lack of a better word.

"I meant, me, that is. I'd like to adopt you myself. Though well, I live alone, so it would be just the two of us. Would you prefer that?"

The redhead seemed to give his proposition a little thought this time, which was better than another blank stare in Kiritsugu's opinion. After blinking several times and humming to himself, the boy raised his right hand, pointing towards Kiritsugu with his index finger.

The simple, crude display of faith in him moved Kiritsugu, who stepped back, a weak chuckle escaping his throat, as he slowly dropped his suitcase down on the ground.

"I'm glad." He finally admitted, allowing another chuckle to escape him. "In that case, let's get you dressed up right away. You need to get acclimated to your new home as soon as possible, and oh, I nearly forgot. There's something very important I want to tell you."

He closed his eyes, reinforcing his decision to go ahead with it. After all, the name _Emiya _had baggage, and he knew very well that the person in front of him, was a magus as well, one with active magic circuits. The deeper details were still not privy to him, but the presence of active magic circuits in the boy was something he had come to know while supplying him with prana for Avalon to act out its mystery. Adopting a magus child into one's household came with its own share of complications, and it was his job to get that bit settled with in the first place.

"Yes," Kiritsugu told himself softly. "I have to do this right now."

"What?" The redhead muttered, apparently puzzled by the strange, scrunched up expression that the man in front of him was making. His glance flickered towards Kiritsugu before settling back onto his own bandaged arms.

"So, you can talk after all." Kiritsugu almost chuckled, wondering if the boy's shenanigans were simply childish antics after all. "You see Shirou, I'm a mage."

"…."

".…"

Apparently, no matter the quality of his circuits, putting up a quick response was not one of this boy's talents.

"…I know." The redhead replied quietly, his attention preoccupied with the bandages in his arm, making Kiritsugu feel an irrepressible urge to unbind those and look for himself what was so damned interesting about them in the first place.

Kiritsugu arched an eyebrow at that. "You knew? How?" He was no expert but he wouldn't expect a child to develop magical sensing abilities. Certainly not one not more than eight years of age.

"…"

"How did you know that I'm a mage?"

Shirou considered his reply. He was merely an eight-year-old, and an amnesiac one at that, but telling a stranger that he looked like he was coated with a _dark red and black hue_ all over didn't seem like a good thing to his young mind. So, he settled on the next best thing. "You smell."

Kiritsugu's eyes almost bulged at that. He might have been a cold-blooded killer for the rest of the world, but as far as personal hygiene was concerned, he had always been—

Wait.

"What do you mean I—I mean, what do I smell like?"

Shirou scrunched up his face, still looking away. "Like… burning paper."

Almost instinctively, Kiritsugu made it a point to smell his trench coat, and check into his suitcase. No, there were no burning smells in the vicinity. Surely the boy had made a mistake and—

"Magi always smell."

It was not a justification, but just, a simple observation.

"Do you know any other magi?"

Shirou looked confounded at that, before shrugging in denial.

Kiritsugu clenched his jaw. All right, this little kid was a magus alright, and had some kind of strange magical sensitivity associated with his olfactory senses. A rather weird ability, but he could see certain uses of it in the future. He would need to look into it later.

"Do you know who you are?"

Shirou paused for a moment. "…Shirou."

"And your family?" Kiritsugu stressed, pushing himself towards the boy in attention. He had of course, questioned the medic in charge of his treatment. The physician had told him that it wasn't unnatural for young people to suffer from amnesia as a way to ignore trauma. The flames and the burning city, not to mention the probable loss of his family members in the fire, would obviously classify as severe trauma. Of course, he had been through the list of survivors caught in the flames, said list small enough to be counted on a single hand, and have fingers left over. There hadn't been a single person that could be linked to the boy. Still… "Maybe I can aid in finding them?"

"…gone."

_Gone? Does that—His family perished? In the flame perhaps?_

"Your family's name?"

A blank stare was the only response he got in return. A momentary one, before he looked away.

Kiritsugu leaned back, his hands resting on his hips. Now if only the aftereffects of the pains could lessen a bit. The boy's odd behaviour and that strange heterochromatic stare was starting to get to him. Then again, what experience did he have in dealing with children suffering from PTSD?

He considered the boy. Obviously, he was from a magi lineage, and possibly even had some amount of training before the—the accident. From the bright red hair and the obviously-Japanese features, there was no mistaking that the kid belonged to one of the magi lineages in Japan. Besides, Japan already had an incredibly high number of human hybrids, so it is quite possible that this child was from one of them. Between the Oni kind, the mixed blood, the hybrids, the psychics, the magi and then some, trying to find the boy's parents would take eternity.

He glanced at the boy again, ignoring the recurring pain shooting up his spine as he performed a quick structural analysis. Twenty-seven circuits. A surprisingly large number, and quite well-developed too. And that odd _sensing _ability, a sorcery trait perhaps? It would require looking into, but that was for later.

"Well," Kiritsugu grasped for words to say, "now that, _that _is cleared, how would you like to get dressed up for your new home?"

"…."

"Well?"

Shirou quickly nodded.

* * *

The newly renovated and christened Emiya Residence, was a large Japanese-styled mansion in the north-end of Miyama, encompassing a pretty large plot of land purchased by Kiritsugu through shady deals with the Fujimura Group, a year before the Grail War was supposed to begin. The finances were provided for, by the Einzbern, in Kiritsugu's name, to serve as a secret Headquarters during the war. With it being in the absolute vicinity of both Tohsaka and Matou families, it was a dangerous choice, and yet, provided much advantage because of its unpredictability. The entire residence had two separate guest wings, and an immensely old, stone-walled storehouse that served as Irisviel's temporary workshop after the Einzbern mansion in Fuyuki had been demolished during the battle with Kayneth Archibald.

Knowing how conniving and downright obstinate the Einzbern could be, the very first thing Kiritsugu had done was to transfer whatever fortune he had in his official bank accounts into smaller _ratholes, _a practice he had employed from his very early days during the war. Besides, his profession as a Freelancer had fetched him quite a significant fortune, enough for him to continue living the rest of his life without work easily, and leave something for the future. He had sold over half of his ammunition and equipment to Raiga Fujimura, something that had gone quite a long way in establishing a good rapport with the Yakuza Boss, his new neighbour and friend.

Turns out it wasn't that bad of a deal. With Raiga's connections, he had been able to get workers at affordable rates to get the renovation done quickly. It would still take a week or so to complete, but for now, the house was more than habitable.

"Am I going to live here?"

Turns out that Shirou—the fascinating, little redhead, wasn't as silent as he had previously imagined. A few hours of semi-awkward conversation, some ice-creams and a trip to the residence on one of Fujimura's cars, and little Shirou had already progressed from speaking in words to full sentences.

"Yeah," Kiritsugu answered. "Do you like it?"

Shirou scrunched his face, his blank stare zooming and flickering all over the place, almost like he was afraid to hold a steady gaze. Apparently, it was something the boy had a habit of doing, or so the Emiya inferred. "Dusty."

"The dust will be gone in a few days." Kiritsugu answered, pointing towards the sweaty workmen who were pulling up old planks from the floor, and inserting newer ones. Apparently, they were going to use fibre-glass for the outer doors instead of wood—Raiga's choice, not his. Personally, he had grown somewhat comfortable with the European beds and comforts in Germany, but he supposed that he could try and survive this as well.

"This house is big." Shirou mumbled.

"Is that so?" The retired assassin questioned. "Bigger than your previous house?"

Shirou shrugged. He looked up, staring at Kiritsugu for a quick second, before pointing out towards the doors. "Aren't those things supposed to be made of wood?"

"Generally, yes." The older man agreed, observing the little kid. "Old man Raiga decided to go with fibreglass when I asked for his input. Says its more modern and provides better insulation."

"Insula—what?"

Kiritsugu chuckled. "It will be more comfortable living inside them with those instead of wood."

"Ah."

"Where have you seen houses like this one with wooden doors?"

Shirou scrunched up his face. "I… don't know."

_Well, it was worth an attempt. _Kiritsugu sighed inwardly. Even the doctor hadn't been able to put his finger on anything that could determine the boy's origins, and Kiritsugu wasn't a mage talented enough to use the boy's blood to scry for relatives. The only ones who could probably do that were shut-ins in the Department of Spiritual Evocation at the Clock Tower in London, and frankly, Kiritsugu wasn't sure if he wanted that in the first place. Call him selfish, but he had kind of, found a support-system in the kid, even if said kid was slightly strange and amnesiac. As soon as he could get the adoption dealt with, he could work on an attempt to get back to Germany and get his daughter back. He had of course, made an international call to the Einzbern Mansion, but Jubstacheit hadn't sounded remotely pleased with the way the events had turned out, and seemed to treat the apparent tainted nature of the Grail as something inconsequential. He had requested to be allowed to speak to his daughter, only for the phone to be slammed down on the other end.

"We will be having lunch at the Fujimura's today. You can meet them over there."

The boy shrugged, as if he had registered his words and then decided them to be of no significance. Not that Kiritsugu could blame him. Either way, the boy seemed awfully interested in the workmen renovating the house.

"Umm, old man, what do I call you?"

Said old man laughed at that. "I'm hardly thirty-two, Shirou. But you can call me Kiritsugu, for now at least."

"Kirit—sugu!"

"Much better." The man grinned. "Well, welcome to your new home."

* * *

**Five weeks later.**

Seated on the edge of the porch, Kiritsugu smiled down at the moon's reflection on his sake cup. The white orb always did remind of his wife and their tinkling laughter. The same wife whom he had known would die with her participation in the war, and yet, he had brought her there anyway. The same daughter who was currently trapped somewhere inside the Einzbern mansion, waiting for her father to return to her. Though, from their last telephone conversation, it was pretty much clear that Jubstacheit would go out of his way to prevent that out of sheer animosity.

_K__erry, did you know that a sect in Asia believe that they can pass on messages to their family through the moon? Doesn't that seem so silly?_

How the mighty have fallen! He mused. Here he stood, sitting over the porch with a cigarette, his mind lost in nostalgia and second thoughts. He, who was literally the King of Freelancers at one time, was now having to suffer pain just for using a single magic circuit. But even so, he knew very well that he would have to keep doing that, or else, his circuits would get atrophied over time. Wilfully go through mind-numbing pain to keep his ability to use magecraft. If this wasn't irony, what was?

Kiritsugu sighed and placed the cup to the side, ignoring the ache in his wrist. A gift from the Holy Grail for his defiance, his body had begun to ache in every piece of skin, muscle and bone that had sustained injury over the course of his career. Of course, his medical reports said otherwise and the doctor was very careful in not calling him a crazy old man and had left him with a placebo subscription that proved to be as useful as a handgun against a dead apostle. Then again, what good was normal medicine against an ancient curse?

In the grand scheme of things, the pain mattered little when compared to the fallout of the Fourth Holy Grail War.

According to every single asset he was contact with, the Clock Tower had come down hard on the Triumvirate of the Einzbern, Matou and Tohsaka lineages. The Tohsaka had been spared the brunt of the punishment due to their low position on the magi's social strata, the loss of the Lord and Lady and despite-

"You're slipping."

Taken by surprise, Kiritsugu instinctively drew on prana to prepare an attack before the identity of the voice broke through the haze. He had almost learnt to ignore the searing pain now, after a month of consistent exposure to it. Turning to the right, he found Shirou sitting beside him, legs dangling off the porch. Kiritsugu's lips curved into a smile. Lost in his thoughts, he had missed the arrival of his son. "It's a good night to be lazy, Shirou."

Shirou frowned. "Did Fuji-nee teach you that?"

Right. Taiga Fujimura. Raiga Fujimura's only grandchild and possible successor to the Yakuza dynasty the man had built over the decades. Then again, considering everything, he might just forget the last part, considering that Taiga was the last person on earth one would suspect of being from a Yakuza lineage. The hyperactive girl did not have one conniving bone in her body, and acted way too much like a fusion of both Iri and Illya for Kiritsugu's liking. Shirou's first meeting with Taiga had been an epic one, one that had taken place the very day Shirou had stepped inside the Emiya residence.

Shirou had been loitering around near the inner gates of the rather spacious Fujimura Residence, when Taiga, freshly returned from her school, and somewhat frustrated because of things best known to herself, had spotted the little redhead and instantly decided his intentions as malicious, attacking him with one of her bokkens.

It had not been a good sight.

On second thought, had Kiritsugu not witnessed it with his own eyes, he would perhaps, have doubted the authenticity of the entire event. He had watched Shirou move with near impossible swiftness, reminding Kiritsugu about his own branch of Time Alteration spells—shifting his footing to the right, enough to take hold of Taiga's right arm—the same one that held the bokken—pulling it ahead of him, before pushing her with a soft tap at the back of her neck.

The so-named Tiger of Fuyuki had literally smashed her face into the ground. And then, Shirou turned around, madly muttering apologies, as he tried to get the girl up and offer help.

It must therefore, be _not at all surprising, _that Taiga Fujimura decided to lay claim on the little kid, claiming him as her _little brother._

It drove his adopted son crazy. Of course, as far as Kiritsugu himself was concerned, the entire event was a stunning revelation. His amnesiac kid, whoever he might have been, had had extreme practice at close-combat, and excellent reaction-time, if that sudden subconscious response was of any clue.

"Hah!" He laughed. "Now why would you say that?"

Shirou's face twisted into a deep scowl as he thought about the brown-haired menace, as his lips moved almost automatically to express his emotions. "So _Lazy!" _

Oh, right. Taiga had taken his reflexes to be good enough to start indoctrinating the kid in Kendo. After over two days of constant exposition and practice, Taiga had left the slightly impressionable kid alone inside one of the sitting rooms of the Emiya Residence. The boy had, as far as Kiritsugu knew, not even ventured out for the rest of the day except for dinner.

The next day, Taiga had literally dragged him into her self-proclaimed _dojo, _to properly train him to become a proper Kendoka. Kiritsugu did not know what exactly transpired within the wooden walls of the dojo, but Taiga had the eyes of a war-veteran, and Shirou had a small smile on his lips. Unfortunately, this was Taiga Fujimura he was dealing with—the Tiger of Fuyuki who was a _sore loser, _for lack of a better word. She had gotten her legendary _Torashinai _to quell the rise of her future opponent, and the results were not… good to look at.

"Did she take out the Torashinai today as well?" Kiritsugu asked generally, knowing the girl's newly found obsession of coming at Shirou with the cursed bokken.

As if in confirmation, Shirou turned to him with wide eyes, nodding his head furiously. "That bokken is… wrong."

"Wrong?" Kiritsugu arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah!" Shirou emphasized. "Smells like blood. So, so _wrong!" _Then as if to reinforce his point, he shuddered, probably thinking of it.

_He was able to sense the curse in it, huh? _Kiritsugu's lips twisted in curiosity. A part of him had been ready to throw away that little observation about Shirou's magical sensing as a fluke, but the recurrence of a similar event so soon only managed to reinforce it. And therein lay the problem.

After everything he had been through, Kiritsugu had been all too ready to forget the existence of the moonlit world. He had a decent residence for himself, and had built up enough fortune to last his remaining years, and yet, have more than enough left for Shirou and Illyasviel to live up a decent lifestyle for the next three decades or so. Had Shirou been another ordinary child, it would have been _oh-so-easy _to go with the plan. Unfortunately, Shirou was hardly what he would call ordinary, not even by Magi standards.

It hadn't been all that conspicuous from the beginning, but the symptoms were always there.

Of course, the boy demonstrated all symptoms of retrograde amnesia, and suffered from an extreme version of memory loss. He knew next to nothing about his family, his prior living conditions, and by the looks of it, did not even receive a formal education at schools, which was extreme, even for magi standards. But even with the amnesia, there were certain things that he retained.

Extremely high physical tuning, with reflexes comparable to someone with an Enforcer background, or perhaps, an assassin. Extreme magical sensitivity in the form of smell, and—if he was right, forms of colour as well, though the latter was still subject to future experimentation before he could rightfully determine it to be true. Previous exposure to physical training in self-reinforcement magecraft. No determined sorcery traits. Twenty-seven, B ranked magic circuits. Extreme affinity towards sword-based combat.

And he was heterochromatic, did not make prolonged eye contact with anything or anyone, and had red hair.

So far, Kiritsugu was of opinion that his adopted son was either from one of the magical lineages devoted towards the physical side of magical combat, perhaps from the Enforcer-background like the Edelfelt family, or a general psychic lineage, or worse, from one of those groups that stole away children to be inducted and trained to become a ruthless assassin.

Just like he was. The only difference—he had chosen it for himself to save the world, and this boy… he had been forced into it, and had now lost his memory, though not his talents. The question was—what to do with him? Kiritsugu had an incredible urge to simply ignore it all and make the boy live a normal life, even at the cost of not teaching him magecraft at all. A normal life, like any other.

There was a second option, and the Magus Killer hated it. Scratch that, he absolutely _loathed it, _but that didn't make it's potential any less true.

Jubstacheit Von Einzbern had made his call. As far as the old lion was concerned, Kiritsugu betrayed the Einzbern by destroying the Grail vessel, losing them their chance at reclaiming the lost Third Magic. Of course, the Einzbern had instantly tried to cease all of Kiritsugu's assets (or whatever remained of them anyway) and had made it _very _clear that any sightings of the man within a one-acre radius of the Einzbern property would be dealt with lethal force. With his present condition and Angra Mainyu's curse, there was no way that he could be able to break through the Einzbern bounded fields, after helping make them over the years. Not in his current state anyway.

Kiritsugu glanced at the redhead sitting right next to him.

He could not, but Shirou could. _Shirou Emiya_, his adopted child, held significant potential, and with correct tutelage, Shirou could be instrumental in getting Illya out of the Einzbern's hands. He had promised her that he would return, and return he would. Of course, Shirou's tutelage could take years. There was a pretty high chance that he would not even make it before the actual event happened. But… but did that mean that he wouldn't even try? But would it be fair to the little kid to be trained to become a ruthless Magus Killer like himself? Was this a price little Shirou would have to pay for being rescued by the lethal machine that was Kiritsugu Emiya?

"Iri…" Kiritsugu closed his eyes. "What would you have done in my place?"

"Old man," Shirou spoke up again. "Are you sleepy?"

"No… just thinking about the past, about how things have changed." The Magus Killer replied in a nostalgic tone. "I'm not sure if that was for the good or the bad."

The redhead seemed to comprehend what he was trying to say, and nodded his head softly. "Hey old man?"

"Yes, Shirou?" He answered, eyes still closed.

"What is a mage?"

Kiritsugu's eyes shot open, before shooting a skeptical glance at his adopted son. "I thought you told me that Magi always smell of something." He was still a little skeptical about how magical sensitivity being some form of olfactory signals, but that was neither here nor there.

Shirou nodded.

"And you do not know what Magi are?"

"…No?"

"Then how do you know they smell?"

Shirou scrunched up his face again, thinking hard. After five strenuous seconds, he looked back with an adorably helpless stare. "I can't remember."

The Magus Killer watched his son dumbly for a moment, before giving up. "Well, a mage or magus if you prefer, Magi in plural, is someone who uses magecraft."

"Mage—what?"

"Magecraft." The man repeated.

"Is that like… magic?" Shirou asked, curiosity evident in his tone.

"…Yes. I would have phrased it differently, but yes." Kiritsugu answered.

"Hmmm." Shirou frowned. "You can do magic, right?"

"I can… mostly." Kiritsugu did not like the direction the conversation was going on, but decided to humour the boy's curiosity. Perhaps he would come across some other talents that the boy had.

Shirou turned his glance towards his own hands, as if they were the most interesting things on the planet. It was something of a recurring theme, Kiritsugu was learning. The boy would keep away from staring at anything except his own body parts—hands, fingers, legs, or perhaps his clothes. He would not stare away, not stare at the ground, or at a person, and even if he did, it wouldn't be for long. Kiritsugu had asked him the reason for that once, only to get an ephemeral and not at all helpful answer.

The boy had told him that it _pained _to look elsewhere for long.

"What's wrong, Shirou?"

"I just…" the little boy murmured. "Wish I could do magic."

_Like—the hell? What kind of magus develops so many magical talents without recognizing that they-? -_Kiritsugu shut off the mental rant, suppressing a sudden choke, before answering in a throaty voice. "Tell me Shirou, would you like to learn magic?"

The endearing smile he received was bright enough to light up the corridor.

* * *

**AN: Yeah, I was slightly disappointed in myself with the first chapter of Fate Resurgence and did a complete overhaul with the storyline, creating something different from scratch. Updates on this story will of course, depend upon the reactions I get from my audience. Well, there are two things I'd like to clear out right off the bat.**

**First, this is a complete AU and that means I will be ignoring Canon whenever I like if it suits my story plotline. Second, Shirou here is not exactly canon-Shirou, though I suppose that bit was pretty clear right off the bat.**

**Anyway, what do you think of this first chapter? Please review.**


	2. Beginnings

**Five years later.**

Homurahara Academy was one of the largest schools in the entirety of Fuyuki city, the only one to have all three schooling divisions packed in one. The closest to something like that was Jounan Academy in Mifune city, and that was quite far. Then again, considering the _incidents _that tended to happen in Mifune city, most people usually stayed away from that place, choosing to deviate towards Misaki and Fuyuki instead.

It had been five years since he had first encountered Kiritsugu Emiya amidst the flames, and witnessed the teary-eyed man save him from the fires of hell itself, before adopting him into his family. Back then, Shirou had been hardly capable of speaking in full-sentences, forget holding long conversations with people he knew. As far as strangers were concerned, little Shirou was perfectly happy to consider them non-existent.

His only remorse was that he had not considered putting Taiga Fujimura under the same category.

Because of his amnesia and his somewhat _anti-social _behaviour, Kiritsugu had decided to keep him away from general schooling, believing it better to simply teach him by himself, and with aid from privately-hired tutors. Private education was hardly an uncommon thing in Japan, and it was perfectly natural for kids—usually the more sheltered types—to be introduced to schooling later when they were in their teens. For most people belonging to this category, Middle School was the first step to a formal academic education.

And that was how Shirou Emiya found himself facing a life of academic education at Homurahara Academy, his first day of Middle School. It was _completely natural _for him to hesitate being in the presence of so many people—_strangers, _a part of his mind told him—all day long, for the next several years of his life. Almost instinctively, a trace amount of prana was beginning to be moulded between his fingers, shaping into a pointed end with a long—

"Come now Shirou-chan, your classmates aren't going to eat you, you know?" The gentle yet teasing feminine voice behind him proceeded to laugh at his sudden hesitation.

Shirou _almost _rolled his eyes. Right, how had he forgotten? Otoko Hotaruzuka, a senpai who just graduated from High School, a friend _and rival _of Taiga Fujimura, and most importantly, one of his tutors for the last five years. Otoko's father ran an Izakaya called Copenhagen, though as far as most people were concerned, it was just an overrated pub. Shirou disliked the man, plain and simple. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that his culinary skills were almost on par with him.

"Otoko-nee-san, I am _not _afraid of school." The young teen asserted.

"Right, so the tales of how you haven't slept for two days fearing about school and deranged and rabid strangers?" The brown-haired girl challenged, raising her brow.

"All rumours, I promise." Shirou emphasized.

"Of course. And the dark spots below your eyes are?"

"Bruises from the practice the other day."

"Of course, and your stopping after every three steps?"

"Umm... enjoying nature?"

Otoko snorted at that. "I didn't take you as a lover of nature all this while?"

"I'm not, but it seems my body is." Shirou replied straight-faced. It had to work. Miracles did exist. Right?

"It is a unique situation." Otoko deadpanned, before hitting him on the head with a classic Aikido-style jab. Otoko and Taiga were somewhat of a rival when it comes to martial arts, but Taiga always overwhelmed her at Kendo, while she stomped the Fujimura at Aikido. It was a long story, and completely out of present context.

"Oww. Oww." Shirou cried comically. "What was that for?"

"For delaying me. Now get going."

"You are a witch." The teen growled.

"I love you too."

* * *

Shirou could easily accept that the past few years had almost felt like a part cut out of someone else's life. Then again, he had absolutely no memories of his lifer prior to the burning flames and that feeling of helplessness, regret, pain, burn, curse—

He shook his head. It would not do to think back about it all over again. His mind had this tendency to just _drown _into the insanity that had been there, and it was from within that monstrosity, that Kiritsugu had _saved _him. Of course, on his second meet with the man, he had immediately discerned that the man was a magus, though he wasn't _exactly sure _what the term Magus even meant, at least not until Kiritsugu had taken the time to explain it to him in excruciating detail.

A Magus was a practitioner of magecraft, someone who used energy—Mana and Od—to create prana out of his circuits to perform magical feats. More importantly, a Magus was someone who walked with Death. A Magus was someone who lived in the modern world, but followed the ways of magecraft. And that was what he had been trained in, over the last five years.

He shook his head again. Kiritsugu had pounded it deep inside his mind—_everything at its own time. _He was in school, and thus, it would not do to let his mind wander into other things. There was enough time to do that later when he got home. Besides, it was not like he knew _no one _here. There was the reedy Issei Ryuudou, his only friend of his own age, and a really wise one at that, if albeit a little pushy at times. Shirou had been acquaintances, then friends with the monk-in-training for the last three years, ever since Kiritsugu had hired Issei's elder brother Reikan to train Shirou in hand-to-hand combat. His father had been extremely clear about Reikan _not treating _Shirou as a kid, something that had gotten him several broken bones amongst other things, but that was the story for another day.

And there he went all tangent for the third time. He really needed to bring some semblance of control on this annoying habit.

_It will get you killed in the most insufferable way. _A voice in his head, that sounded eerily-similar to his adopted father, spoke to him.

_As if I already didn't know that._

"Hey Emiya, is that you?"

Shirou turned wide-eyed at the familiar voice, only to instantly shoot his gaze down at the floor, closing his eyes, as his fingers trembled for a second, before relaxing. "Yeah… it—it's me."

Issei Ryuudou, who had been standing behind him, with an entire group of students just entering the corridor from the sides right that moment, ran up to the redhead. "Emiya, are you alright?"

"Yeah!" Shirou replied again, his voice now losing the tension previously lining it.

"I thought you got rid of that problem of yours." The monk-in-training questioned, remembering his friend's strange issues at looking at strangers. He didn't exactly know what the problem was, only that it was genetic and that the young Emiya usually avoided staring directly at almost everything. Of course, his friend had slowly gained a level of comfortability over the issue, but right now, it seemed like that had been a temporary thing at best.

"I did," Shirou muttered, relaxing himself further as he slowly opened his eyes, before meeting his friend with an indirect gaze. "It's just, everything is kinda' new, so it caught me off guard, that's all."

"So you say." The other boy replied, flinching slightly at the young Emiya's stare. Over the time he had known Emiya, aside from his unnatural affinity with Kyudo and Kendo, and his equally-unnatural diligence towards learning Aikido from Reikan, the redhead was almost a flower-loving pacifist, going out of his way to help anyone, even if it is a random stranger he met on the street. While some people would consider it helpfulness, Issei always suspected something, though he could never put a finger on it. That said, that _heterochromatic _stare of his _always made_ Issei feel _funny, _and though he couldn't exactly put it down into words, he instinctively felt that it was _alien, _and _wrong. _In fact, back in the early days of their acquaintance, Issei had run to his father, asking if it was possible to check the redhead for symptoms of possession.

"Issei?"

"Huh?"

"You were saying something?"

"Uh… yeah right." Said boy gathered his thoughts. "So, you are finally in school, huh? I should tell you that as Class President, I'm supposed to be fair towards everyone, and that includes you, Shirou-chan. Don't think that our mutual friendship will curry you any favours?"

"…sure thing." Shirou didn't know what to say about it, as his gaze met the floor, randomly observing how there were seven hundred vitrified tiles on the very corridor he was currently on, with sixteen of them developed major splinters. Two tiles on the left of Issei's left shoe was the only one to have developed a single splinter that arched diagonally, and made creaking sounds every now and then if either end got a little loose. The thirteenth tile to his right was actually loose and used by a certain caretaker to hide a half-filled bottle of single-malt whiskey from the—

"Stop thinking about something else when I'm talking to you."

"…"

Pause.

"…"

"…um, sorry."

Issei scowled. "I hate when you do that."

"Sorry. It comes and goes." Shirou apologized.

"Don't just apologize so much. It's kind of unnerving at times." The fellow monk-in-training refuted with a frown. "Anyway, you are in Class 1 B, I think, same as me. There's this girl called Mitsuzuri Ayako, and she's like a devout follower of that Fujimura girl who graduated last year. She's gonna force you to sign up for the clubs. So, stay sharp."

"Uhuh!" Shirou replied offhandedly, wondering why his friend was so stingy about the clubs. Then again, what did he know about school rules and systems anyway? His father and his tutors had taught him for five years, and he had _also _passed the entrance exams, and placed in the first year of Middle School. Surely, he would survive the experience without major difficulties.

Right?

* * *

"I hate school."

Kiritsugu Emiya observed his son with an amused expression floating on his lips. The first day of Shirou's schooling had hardly been over, and yet, the boy had already given up, and declared his ultimatum.

"I don't mind practicing the same disciplines for the next five years, but I'm not gonna return back to that devilish place." Shirou stomped the ground with his feet, putting up an infuriated expression.

"Shirou, what have I taught you about pouting?"

"I'm not pouting." Shirou pouted.

"Of course." His father drawled. "Either way, you do not really have a choice in that matter. If you do not go to Middle School now, you'll be totally incompatible with High School too. Besides, didn't you say that you wanted to make new friends?"

"I said that when I was nine." The redhead refuted back. "It was just one time. Besides," he turned away, his eyes dimming a little. "It felt like my head would burst over and over."

Kiritsugu frowned. "So, it is still not enough huh? I had thought that the experience of all these years would have been enough, especially with Avalon working to heal you."

"Avalon is a Fae-construct that barely heals my injuries. Stop treating it like your replacement for Aspirin."

Kiritsugu arched an eyebrow. Whatever had happened to make his usually introverted son to be this… frank, must have been significant. Either that, or he was simply underestimating the amount of information that could be gathered from a school building with class in session.

"Right. We'll talk about it later. Go get yourself freshened up before we get down to training. Or are you too excited to train after your first day of school?"

Without preamble, Shirou picked up his bag from the floor, before dragging it all the way to his room, leaving his father to his thoughts.

"We'll start in thirty minutes. Have your lunch first. I made some ramen for you."

"Cooked food made by Kiritsugu Emiya doesn't count as lunch." A yell shot out from the living room, causing the elder man to flinch. Surely, he had nearly burned the kitchen once while trying to make noodles, but that didn't mean that his ability was that bad. He had even undergone some _training _on the subject from a certain someone, and he'd like to believe that he made half-decent ramen at least.

Well, at least he thought he did.

Oh well, given how obstinate the kid could be, it was a given that Shirou would just cook something up instead. Well, that wasn't bad. It would give him some time to consider the change in situation.

Ever since Kiritsugu had reached a decision to train Shirou in magecraft, he had actively tried to mould the boy using the very arts that Natalia Kaminski once drilled into him, with the object of shaping the boy into someone better than Kiritsugu himself back in his prime. Of course, given Angra Mainyu's curse, he found it nigh unbearable to use his magic circuits—not without accepting a hell lot of pain that is. For that reason, he had visited some of his shadier contacts in Japan that had been instrumental in providing him with commercially-available _prana _batteries. These batteries were, per se, a way for the less fortunate magi out there with more power than they could utilize to earn some raw cash. Stored prana was usually a good way for using rituals, and as far as Kiritsugu was concerned, he needed some for the same reason. Case in point—a ritual to identify his adopted son's Origin and Alignment, or as the younger generations liked to call it—Elemental Affinity.

He might have gone slightly overboard when he had spent a little over seventy thousand yen on it, but it had been worth it. Of course, that much quantity of prana was hardly required for a simple origin-identification, but given that he had taken upon himself the duties of a teacher, he assumed that he would sooner or later, require more prana for future rituals. The stored prana had worked perfectly—well, satisfactorily, if one was being more truthful—and gave him a good idea of his strange situation. Somehow, his adopted son—the ever-intriguing _Shirou _Emiya had an identical Alignment and Origin, and that too, of a completely unheard-of element.

Sword.

A Magus with matching Alignment and Origin was unheard-of, even for someone of Kiritsugu's status. Of course, it was not from a Magi-standpoint but from an Enforcer-based one. If anyone would have a matching Origin and Affinity, it would obviously be enough for the Clock Tower bastards to put a Sealing Designate on them, and send the hunting dogs out in the wild. But even if something so unique like that had escaped his eye, he had yet to find someone with an element as peculiar as _Sword. _Usually, Alignments were either element-based, or esoteric for the more peculiar Magi lineages. But for a person's Origin _and _Alignment to manifest as something so _physical _as _Sword _was downright unprecedented and fascinating.

Bottom line—One single whisper about his son's status, and the Clock Tower would have him captured, gagged, chained, and delivered at the Tower. After that, they would probably vivisect, and experiment on him for the rest of his life trying to understand the secrets within. After he served his purpose, they wouldn't even leave him intact, dissecting him for any further information. Such was the brutality of the clock tower. He blamed Natalia for telling him all the horror stories about the ultimate fate of certain sealing designates at the hands of the Tower magi.

It was a very, very troubling thought.

His freshly adopted son had twenty-seven high-quality magic circuits, had significant amount of prior close-combat experience, and had identical Origin and Alignment of Sword. And that was without that heterochromia of his, even a single glance at it made him feel all weirded and downright uncomfortable.

Yep. Chained, bound, petrified. And then vivisected and experimented for life for sure.

The revelation had been heart-wrenching, making him instantly want to choose the former option of keeping Shirou ignorant of magecraft, force him to lead a natural life, and as for himself, try to get Illya out of the Einzbern fortress, despite the more cynical part of him calmly pointing out how _impossibly ludicrous _it was. He had then remembered about his son's other _abilities, _and come to a logical decision that forcing him to lead a natural life wouldn't be a proper solution and thus, he would need to think the matter through, to figure out a way to make ends meet.

It had taken him over a month, but the Magus Killer had diligently prepared a regimen specifically geared towards development of his son's abilities, while keeping in mind of his extraordinary situation.

He was hardly an expert at the more esoteric aspects of magecraft. However, his knowledge of what he _did know _was expansive, and fortunately, the disciplines related to Magical Energy, Circuits, Origin, Alignment and the flow of mana were something he liked to think he had an authority about.

Case in point. His Origin Bullets. Kiritsugu knew more than anyone else, just how _dangerous _one's Origin could be, if geared in the right way. The dual Origin of _Severing and Binding _had allowed him the usage of what was possibly an A-rank Anti-magus weapon. One single shot using those bullets and he was able to perfectly destroy a Magi's magic circuits. Just ask the Archibald family. They'd tell you.

Shirou's Origin of Sword was restrictive in many ways, and yet, flexible in others. The objective was to weave through the restrictions and utilize the flexibility to create a congregation of disciplines that would fit Shirou—Sword Incarnate—best.

His son already knew Structural Grasping, or at least a variant of it, using those eyes. Kiritsugu taught him how to grasp objects using the sense of _touch _instead.

The boy already knew self-reinforcement. Kiritsugu taught him how to take it to greater heights and reinforce others.

For the better part of the year, Shirou's training had been limited to structural grasping and reinforcement—seven hours a day, seven days a week, over and over. It was only when the young boy, barely eight or nine—had been able to display skill that was head and shoulders above what Kiritsugu himself was capable of that he decided to add a third thing into the dish.

Gradation Air, or as otherwise known, Projection.

The art of creation of a substance out of the creator's imagination, using prana as the source material. Regarded as an incomplete discipline by most, projection was a somewhat useless technique for most magi, with its applications limited to the creation of daggers or vessels for rituals. Kiritsugu himself, used projection at times to create plain knives or bullets when he lacked ammunition in a fight. It was a relatively easy way to both kill an opponent, and yet, leave no clues behind. From what Kiritsugu had hypothesized, Shirou's ability to project _bladed items _should be far superior than anything Kiritsugu could even imagine.

And he had been right.

Projecting a normal .30 bullet took the Magus Killer approximately 20 units of prana. Projecting a dagger, no less than 3 inches took around 35 units. For Shirou though, projecting the same bullet took around 25 units of prana—which Kiritsugu determined to Shirou's lack of previous exposure to the discipline. Projecting the dagger though, took the boy 8 units at best.

And therein, had he struck gold.

As far as the Magus Killer had been able to hypothesize, the matching Origin and Alignment would render him nearly incapable of performing any standard magecraft except the mere fundamental ones. However, the same match-up would allow Shirou to take the skills he was good at, to a level most of the stuck-up bastards at the Tower would only hypothesize.

After almost a year delving into Gradation Air, Kiritsugu had added Alteration to the mix. Structural Grasping, Reinforcement, Projection and Alteration—four disciplines were all that he taught to the young magus-in-training. Of course, his initial idea was to combine Shirou's unusual speed and accuracy, his ability with reinforcement, and his uncanny ability to create blades with trace amounts of prana, into a deadly fighting technique. And then, the boy just _had to _go and break all his plans and estimations into dust.

_Tracing. _Such a ridiculous term, and yet, it was an apt name for what it did. The little redhead had taken Gradation Air to a ridiculous level, by combining structural grasping into it, adding not only the outer and inner structures, but also the concept of creation, the mysteries within, and the personal history, tying them together to create a perfect replica of the target. He had used Reinforcement to further strengthen the object, getting rid of its vulnerabilities. He'd used Alteration to further twist the projected object into a more idealized state of existence, surpassing the original. As far as Kiritsugu was concerned, had he not known that these objects were ultimately prana-constructs, he'd have sworn they were originals, and better versions than the one at hand.

Of course, that went double if the _traced _item was a bladed weapon—a reflection of how Shirou's Origin and Alignment contributed to his specific skillset. This was—the Magus inside Kiritsugu had realized—the true potential of the Sword Incarnate that was his son.

That was over two years ago.

"I'm ready Dad."

The familiar voice shook Kiritsugu out of his reveries, as he turned right, looking at his son, ready in his training uniform—a thick, dull-grey apron tied above his clothes, and two wrist-bands of the same colour, each extending up to the elbow. The material was reinforced leather, altered to make it near-immune to fire, and yet, having enough tensile strength to survive a direct slash from one of Shirou's more dangerous _experiments_.

"Let's start with the usual then. And don't forget your five steps." The Magus Killer ordered, casually ignoring the frown on his son's face as he did. The five steps, as he referred to, were in themselves, individual additions which when used together, allow Shirou to project, or as he liked to call it—trace objects at superlative levels.

"I know dad. Jeez, one'd think that after two years of repeated practice, you'd have more trust in me."

"Trust gets you killed."

"Right. Forget I said anything." The redhead scowled, before spreading his hands outward, palms wide open. "How many?"

"Let's start with thirty for now. Fire Element. We'll change that appropriately."

"Right." The redhead closed his eyes, as he began to mutter, thinking of the type of sword he wanted to trace. The Fire element was something he comprehended very well. Then again, fire as a whole, and the concepts within it, were something deeply ingrained in him, and was part of his earliest memories. The blazes, the heat, the burning, sweltering feeling, the pain, the illusion, the—

"Are you ready?"

Shirou shook himself off. "Yes. Judging the concept of creation."

It was the easiest part of the five-step process. With his own comprehension of the Fire Element, he simply had to incorporate it into a random steel sword, in such a fashion that the steel would be altered to assimilate the concepts of Fire inside it, without turning unstable and brittle in the process. Of course, he knew that deep within his mind, he already had a perfect blueprint of a Flame-sword ready to be used and projected in a split-second, but since his father always asked him to do it from scratch, he just ignored the _hundreds of blueprints _in his mindscape, preferring to just redesign a sword from scratch instead. On the plus side, it allowed him to create newer and altered designs for the same weapon, giving him the feel of sword-smiths he watched in the anime on television.

"Altering the structure and composition."

Initially, it had been 'hypothesizing the basic structure, followed by 'duplicating the composition material' but after years of constant honing of his craft, he had been able to mould it into the new version. The concept of the Flame-sword was ready, and thanks to the innumerable substances he had _comprehended _over the years, that gave him a litany of substances to choose from. It had only taken some months of rigorous practice with Alteration to realize that he could just alter these _mental blueprints _at will, to give rise to an amalgamation perfect for his needs.

"Imitating the skill of its making."

This was a by-product of structural grasping, though as Shirou liked to think of it, his ability to comprehend. His eyes, or more precisely, his _left Eye, _allowed him to easily delve into the history of whatever gained his attraction. Of course, at a mere glance, it was just structural analysis, but on channelling prana, it turned into something else.

Retro-cognizance. The ability to delve into his target's structural, functional and conceptual analysis. That quickly followed with the item's history, its construction, the way it was used since its creation and so on. While the ability was a godsend, it was also the source of a near-constant migraine for the young boy, and the reason why he could afford prolonged direct eye contact with nearly almost anything.

With his ability to comprehend the personal history of objects he _saw—_something that went double if the item in question was a bladed weapon, he was able to retain the memory of how said weapon had been crafted, only to replicate that inside his mind. For all he knew, it was like having a large iron forge inside his head, though of course, he hadn't really spoken about it to his father, unsure of his reaction. The point was—he could utilize these histories of _metal-crafting _to forge the blades he wished, like the present one for instance.

The element of Fire brought with itself several concepts. Heat, light, Pain, illusion, temperature. The material was reinforced steel, with an addition of duralumin for additional tensile strength. The alloy had been beaten into shape, the blade was restricted to the shape of a Dao, with the upper edges curved, not unlike a falchion. The hilt was created of the same metal, beaten into a ring around the main blade, and the grips made of reinforced leather, the same one used in his apron. The blade was dyed in with a gradient of red going back, with silver at the edges. This was a one-handed sword, just like the ones he had created the previous week. Of course, Shirou was hardly capable to use a two-sword style yet, but it was something he wanted to pursue in the future.

"Amalgamating growth and accumulated history."

Once again, he used the traced histories of some of the past swords he had crafted, as well as adding from the ones he had witnessed at the Fujimura household. This was the tricky part, since reproducing growth and personal history was one thing, but amalgamating multiple histories into one was something else. There was always a chance of two contradicting histories to cause an unexpected flaw in his creation, and while Shirou had no pride in himself, the same didn't hold true for his swords. For someone who had _known _himself to be a sword Incarnate, and held swords for as long as he remembered, and had the ability to create new swords every day, he found immense pride at every single of his creations. After all, he wasn't a _faker, _but a swordsmith that used prana as source material instead of metal.

The sword was ready, already formed inside his mindscape. All that was needed was to give it form in the real world, in the form of a prana-construct. That led to the last step.

"Excelling production processes."

Five circuits warmed up, as pure prana rushed out of them, fuelling the manufacturing process.

"And Trace… On."

Thirty flame-swords hovered above him, all of them pin-pointed towards the northern end of the Emiya residence, at the stone wall separating the mansion from the Fujimura household. It was a good thing that Kiritsugu had deployed several layers of bounded fields—at the cost of excruciating pain no less—but the fields were damn good at what they were did—they kept any and all noises and magecraft from radiating out of the property. They also served as a proximity alert, custom-designed for informing the household if an intrusion took place, and if said intruder was a normal person or a magus, and if the intruder had any hostile intentions.

Thock. Thock. Thock.

All thirty swords slammed into the stone wall, driving an inch into the frontage in quick succession, before unleashing bright, powerful flames enough to scorch a thick tree thick to black soot from within. Of course, the target being stone, the flames could hardly do more than discolour the area into a faded white at best.

"Four seconds this time. We need to make it faster." Kiritsugu checked his watch, jerking his head, and calmly walking towards the wall, He pulled out a sword at random. "Hmm. The edges didn't break this time. Not bad, though you might need to work on the design a bit. The edge is smooth, but perhaps a straight edge would be better. A sword needs to go deeper and severe, not impress the victim with its craftsmanship."

"…sorry." Shirou muttered. For some reason, he was extremely captivated by the design he had tried to impress upon the sword. "I created them on the basis of a two-sword style and—"

"The material is good, but even I can see gaps within the molecular layers. Surely it could be reinforced in-between cross-layers?" The Magus Killer scrutinized.

"It would break the mould. Further reinforcing makes it brittle and—"

"You did craft this material previously." It was a statement, not a question.

Shirou easily bobbed his head. The truth was, he had simply performed the metalwork inside his head, and finalized the alloy inside the iron forge he could visualize inside his mind. For some reason, he did not feel like informing his father about it. After all, it might just be related to his eyes, and his father had allowed him _carte blanche _to experiment at will.

"I tried to infuse more prana, but it only makes it more brittle. The sword would just explode post-construction. Maybe a couple of seconds later if I'm being a little more careful."

"Let us work on that then." His father declared. "Try to craft blades that would be rendered unstable upon hitting the target, not before."

"You mean like missiles?" The little teen asked, his tone filled with curiosity.

"Something like that." Kiritsugu replied with amusement.

* * *

That night, Kiritsugu Emiya and his son were sitting in the dining room, serving themselves on the delicacies Shirou had prepared for supper. Beside them, Taiga Fujimura was hungrily gorging herself on a mountain of food enough to any self-respecting heroic spirit jealous. Then again, Taiga was a walking box of contradictions. The granddaughter and sole descendant of Raiga's fortune, Taiga was the last person one would suspect of being the next in line to take over the Yakuza group. Then again, nobody would expect the hyperactive nutjob of being a national-level Kendo expert as well, but that didn't stop her from winning that title for two consecutive years.

"Come now Taiga-chan," The elder man advised. "The food isn't going anywhere you know."

"Buha-buha-ha" Said girl replied earnestly, or at least that's what it sounded like.

"English." Kiritsugu deadpanned.

"Buha—I'm gonna go late!" Taiga finished with a gulp. "I need to leave early today so that I can start early tomorrow."

"I thought your practice sessions were over, Taiga-chan."

"Ha—yes. But old Mister Rocco asked me to visit the clubs to pick out candidates for the next junior Kendo and Kyudo tournament."

Shirou instinctively tried to slowly get up from his position. Surely Taiga would forget about him should he—

"And I want to introduce Shirou-chan to the club by myself."

Shirou sighed, apparently miracles did not occur as far as his luck with Taiga was concerned.

"I—I don't want to participate in the club. They're for High School, not middle school." He defended. It wasn't that he was afraid of joining the group. For someone who usually preferred to stay in an extremely limited social company, joining a group was the last thing in his mind. Barely attending the class, while keeping a low-profile had been a pain in the ass. He didn't know what he'd do if he had to put in time for clubs as well. Besides, time wasted on clubs could be used in training himself in magecraft, or practicing Aikido.

"Yes, they usually are." Taiga replied sagely. "But I remembered how good Shirou-chan is, and referred his name to Mister Rocco, and he asked me to ensure that you and the other middle-schoolers got their chance to demonstrate your skills. Isn't that great?"

"No." Shirou deadpanned.

"I can't hear you." Taiga subtly unsheathed the dangerous Torashinai hanging on her waist.

"…Yes." The redhead resigned.

"See?" The mad woman gleefully accepted her strong-armed victory over the redhead, before finishing up the last bit of her supper, before jumping up and leaving past the door. "—re long, need to go, see ya!"

"She should really stop and take a breath." Kiritsugu addressed a much more silent room, before turning to face his son, his tone softer than before. "Is it really that much of an issue, being in school?"

Shirou looked away. "I can manage, I suppose."

"What's wrong?"

"It feels… odd." His son replied, his voice somewhat reluctant. "I mean, it's not like my eyes are beyond control anymore." As if to confirm, his left hand automatically moved up to his eyes, the silver one on the left instantly comprehending and performing a quick analysis, before rejecting the information as duplicate. His right eye however…

"Then?" His father prodded.

"…nothing."

Kiritsugu frowned. Most days, he hated the existence of the Mage Association and the Magus-line of thinking. Other days, he wished that he had paid a little more attention to magecraft theory and become a better mage. And then, there were some days when he couldn't just understand what was wrong with himself.

Shirou's eyes. Initially, they were just something that unsettled Kiritsugu out of nowhere, for reasons he failed to comprehend. However, after extensive theorizing and experimental observation, he had gathered a modicum of information about the nature of his heterochromia.

His son had manifested _Pure Eyes, _or perhaps _Mystic Eyes, _he didn't know for sure,and for the life of him, Kiritsugu could not fathom if Shirou was born with them, or simply gained them after that…heinous experience in the aftermath of the fourth Grail War. Then again, it wasn't so much as to the nature of those eyes but the heterochromia that made it unsettling.

Shirou's left eye, the one with the Silver pupil, childishly christened as the _piercing eye _by the redhead, had a passive ability of performing instant structural analysis on the target that met its glance. However, on passing prana through it, the ability would morph into a form of retro-cognizance—the ability to see the structure, function, concept and history of the target. The implications made him both marvel in awe and step back in horror.

One single glance at anything, and information would flow through the twisted silver eye into Shirou's brain, feeding it with information regardless of their use. Of course, it was a handy thing to have from a Magus point of view, but there was only so far one could go, with having to deal with a near-constant migraine because of endless information overload. If not for Avalon's healing ability, Kiritsugu feared that his son would have had a more difficult life ahead of him.

Because of the nature of his left eye, Shirou avoided prolonged gazes with anything and anyone, and if he could help it, kept away from establishing direct eye contact as well. Sure, it gave the impression of extreme introvert nature, but anything was better than having to deal with the acute pain he received from the information overload.

Of course, that didn't mean that the eye came without benefits. With the aid of his _piercing eye, _Shirou was easily able to take structural grasping to a whole other level, even without Kiritsugu having to teach him the normal way of performing it. It wasn't grasping, it was _absolute comprehension, _to the extent that even books could merely theorize. The applications of such a feat were easily discerned in Tracing, but Kiritsugu believed his son could take it to even greater heights.

The Right Eye, the one with crimson pupil, had been christened the _discerning eye _by the young redhead, which had been a step-up from _judging eye _or _distorting eye, _Kiritsugu mused fondly with slight amusement, remembering the kind of names the little redhead had made-up for his fancy ocular powers. Come to think of it, it was hardly unnatural for a kid to do so in the first place. Shirou had been strangely vague about the details, but from what Kiritsugu understood, it had something to do with the _comprehension of the idealized and altered existences of objects. _Not that it made very much sense to him, and to be frank, he had yet to see any application of the right eye in any form of magecraft. Perhaps something would show up when he progressed to teaching the kid about bounded fields and runes, perhaps not. He had merely put it down as a form of sixth sense that allowed his son to comprehend a target through some kind of colour-based scheme.

"We can work on your ocular techniques again, if that would help. I thought after all this time, you would be ready to have a somewhat normal life."

"Hah!" Shirou chuckled in bitter amusement. "I'm not normal. I'm a sword, only good for cutting and tearing things."

Kiritsugu arched an eyebrow. "A sword is used for parrying and defending as well."

"You don't cut, parry and defend in school. It's… I just cannot explain. You told me not to get myself into fights, but when I see those students, and their natures, and them bullying others, I cannot help but feel like-"

"Hurting them?"

"Hmm." His son admitted, looking away. "I don't mind getting hurt, that's nothing if I end up saving someone, just like you saved me."

And there it was. Kiritsugu frowned. It was something that had become vivid about Shirou's innate nature, over the last five years. Come to think of it, the symptoms had always been there, but somehow, they had become more prominent the moment he had passed onto Shirou the knowledge of his Origin and Affinity.

Sword.

From the very beginning, Shirou had displayed a strange form of survivor's guilt, wanting to help people to the point that he was ready to do other people's jobs by himself if that made him happy. The boy would get into fights almost every single time he was allowed to venture out of the house, fighting off against the other kids his age. On asking why the redhead had jumped into the fight, he'd say—_because I could see them wanting to do bad things to the kid. _It had been a hard time trying to explain to the redhead that he couldn't just attack people because they held bad _intentions, _unless they carried out those intentions in reality. For someone obsessed with Kiritsugu's own dream of becoming a Hero of Justice, and the repetitive self-reinforcement of his nature as a _sword, _Shirou was an extremely difficult kid to take care of. It had gotten the boy a negative reputation, enough for Kiritsugu to ground the boy and overwhelm him with magecraft training if that was what it took to keep him from violence.

"Shirou, you know that you cannot just go ahead and deal with other kids because of their intentions, right?"

"I know." Shirou growled, as if forcefully shackling his primal self. "But it feels… it feels wrong, to hold back, when I want to set it free and swing—" He paused, his eyes drooping, as he looked away. "I don't think it's a good idea for me to be in school. It's just better to be at home and train and—"

"Shirou, there are other ways to stop people from bullying others." Kiritsugu answered. "You can threaten to tell the teachers about it, you know, or ask some upperclassmen to help."

"And what if I'm the one being bullied?" Shirou ground out. "You told me not to jump into fights at all."

"Then… then," Kiritsugu paused, before an idea lit up in his mind. "Then you demonstrate subtler forms of strength, without resorting to violence."

"Like?" Shirou's ears perked up at that.

"Like outperforming others in Kendo and Kyudo."

"…"

Kiritsugu sighed. "Just think of Taiga-chan. Everyone knows about her family background and everything, but even so, people are also scared of picking up fights with her. Do you know why?"

Shirou knew. It was because Taiga Fujimura would kick the crap out of anyone and everyone. Just give her a bokken. You'll see. But that meant—

"This isn't your way to make me join the clubs, is it?" He asked, arching an eyebrow.

Kiritsugu chuckled.

The redhead sat silently, comprehending the discussion that had just taken place. "I understand. But wouldn't it be better if I just kept it to magecraft and learning from you, Fuji-nee and Otoko-nee-san?"

The Magus Killer chuckled. His son had a one-track mind for sure. Shirou's adorable behaviour was only complemented with his downright stubbornness. It had been the reason of more than one of Kiritsugu's headaches in the past.

"Why are you so obsessed with escaping school and focussing on magecraft? I have waited all this time. I can wait a while longer." The man ruthlessly suppressed the urge to snarl inwardly as he was suddenly reminded of his own repeated failures.

"Dad, about that promise between us, about my family—"

"What of it?" Kiritsugu asked, his voice slightly strained. "Are you having second thoughts about it now?"

"No… I'm just—I'm just wondering why I need to go through this entire charade with school and everything. We could just focus on the more important things like getting stronger and taking care of the job and I could start— "

"Shirou," Kiritsugu replied with a slightly broken voice. "Do you really see yourself as someone bound to me via a contract? That I do not care about you anymore than a pawn needed to fulfil my desires?"

"No, but-"

"Then we need not speak of this any further." The man pushed his plate away, wiping his face with a kerchief. "I suggest you go get some sleep now."

"Dad, you cannot keep avoiding things forever. You and I had a deal, and now you want to pretend that it didn't happen at all?"

"What brought this on?" The Magus Killer asked. "Is there something that happened today that you aren't telling me?"

"…no." Shirou got up from the floor. "I'm sorry for wasting your time on that. I'll go get some practice in the workshop." He turned away. "good night, dad."

"Shi-", The words barely left his lips, before the redhead deserted the room. Kiritsugu sighed. "Good night, Shirou." He muttered to the empty room.

* * *

**Three years ago.**

"_So, you had a wife and a daughter. And your wife, she—she died in the fire?" The young redhead questioned, both curious and flummoxed at hearing about his adopted father's life prior to the Fuyuki fire. "And your daughter is kidnapped by the Ice-burn?"_

"_Einzbern." Kiritsugu was almost amused. "Einzbern family."_

"_Yeah, that." Shirou looked away, still trying to cope up with his ocular problems. "Where's that anyway?"_

"_Germany." The man answered, a slight amount of frustration seeping into his tone at the word. _

"_Isn't that—wait, that's where you go when you are away for months, right?"_

_Kiritsugu looked away. Truth be told, while he had initially started teaching the redhead about magecraft in hopes of turning him into a useful tool that could get him recover Illya from the Einzbern, he hadn't really been able to go through with his actions. He didn't know why, but with the experience of the war, the disastrous aftermath, and his finding the boy amidst the rubble followed by his adoption—something had changed in his feelings about the boy. He had of course, started to teach the little kid about magecraft, but only because Shirou wanted to learn it. Of course, learning about his son's status as a Sword Incarnate had only strengthened his resolve to teach him to control his magic better, since otherwise, he'd only be a puppet bound to the Clock Tower if they got their hands onto him._

_Two years had passed since then._

_Of course, Kiritsugu hadn't forgotten about Illya at all. But instead of sharpening his tool that was the Sword Incarnate, the Magus Killer had taken it upon himself to try rescue Illya from the German mage family, even at the cost of excruciating pain, leaving Shirou back in Fuyuki to develop his craft at a relaxed rate. Over the past two years, he had made five attempts to rescue Illya, and every single time, it had resulted in nothing but humiliation. Not just that, the constant failures had begun to take its toll about his mind, turning him bitter and angry with time. Even the redhead had noticed the changes. _

_Of course, Kiritsugu had deflected the topic away, refusing to talk about it, even to Shirou. It was only when Shirou—in his own adorable form, had put his foot down, that the older man had been forced to bite down his ego and talk about it._

_That is how they ended up having this conversation._

_Shirou scrunched his face in thought. "These Einzbern, are they bad people? Why don't they allow you to see your daughter?"_

_Because I destroyed their chance of claiming the Third Magic to prevent world destruction. Kiritsugu didn't say._

"_Because we had a deal between us. I'd do something for them, but I failed, and they kept my daughter away from me ever since."_

"_That's wrong. Did you apologize, try saying sorry?"_

_Kiritsugu fought a conundrum inside his mind, stuck between both laughing at the mental image created by the childish thoughts of his son, and marvelling at how simply the same words described the cruel truth of the scenario._

"_I—I tried. They didn't listen."_

"_Then I'll help you get her back."_

"_Her?"_

"_Your daughter."_

_Kiritsugu felt Time pause around him for a moment. "You will?"_

"_Yeah? Remember how I promised you that I'll be a Hero for you? Well, Heroes fight for what is right, isn't it?" Shirou looked at him with a earnest expression on his face. "You are an old man so you cannot do it anymore. I'll do it for you." He looked away. "I sometimes wonder what happened to my own father and mother. Maybe I'll start looking for them when I grow up."_

_It was cruel, Kiritsugu realized. In his selfish desire to get Illya back, he had deliberately abstained from making any attempts at finding Shirou's true lineage. No, that wasn't correct. Part of the reason was that somewhere inside his heart, he had accepted that he had lost Illya for good, and Shirou was all he had left, and for that reason, hadn't wanted to let him go. And now this little child, he was declaring that he would put Kiritsugu's own needs first, and his own wish to find his real family afterwards?_

_Kiritsugu Emiya did not cry. But the lone tear that dropped from his right eye didn't really take that into consideration._

_But this was not the time to break. He had just gained a new reason to keep striving for his daughter, and he would be damned if he missed that chance. "Tell me Shirou, how would you like to have a deal?"_

"_A deal?" Shirou tilted his head._

"_A deal." Kiritsugu repeated. "You know I'm already teaching you magecraft, but if you agree to help me get Illya back, no matter the cost, then I'll teach you to become the strongest. The absolute strongest."_

"_More than you?" The child's eyes had widened like saucers. In his little mind, Kiritsugu was the real deal—strong, powerful and capable of performing magic._

"_Much more than me. Much, much more than me." Kiritsugu promised. "We will make you the best you can be. It will be difficult, and a lot of hard work. You'll get hurt, but you'll get stronger as well. And when we have gotten Illya back, then I'll help you find what happened to your family."_

_The bright smile on the child's face was comparable to the sunset outside. That however, didn't diminish the tiny shred of darkness and regret in the older man's heart._

* * *

**Present day.**

The large storehouse along the edge of the yard was unlike the rest of the mansion. For one, it was stone-walled, unlike the rest of the building which was constructed out of wood with fibre-glass walls and doors. Second, unlike the rest of the mansion that had been renovated, the storehouse had been left to what it was, except a newer, steel door had been constructed in place of the older, rustier one. The area inside the storehouse was pretty much left empty, except two thin tables along the north wall, and a large magic circle drawn in the centre with something akin to mercury, drawn by a certain blonde-haired non-human around five years ago, and used by Irisviel Von Einzbern on three occasions, all three within the span of a single week. Incidentally, the storehouse was built on a single ley line, one of the few that later converged to meet somewhere beneath Mount Enzou, and thus, the magic circle was a good medium for one Shirou Emiya to draw out mana for his more private experiments. Of course, he didn't quite _comprehend _how the magic circle aided in the process, but he did know how. That much was clear on analysing the circle with his eyes.

Shirou Emiya sat in the centre of the magic circle, closed his eyes, his palms wide open, as large, powerful gears in a distant land began to slowly rotate.

"Trace… on."

It would be wrong to describe them as flashes of light. Rather, the more apt description for them would be a congregation of sand-like luminescent particulates, slowly condensing into separate existences, each of them in the form of a single bladed weapon. His eyes were closed, and yet, he could comprehend what he was creating just from his position—falchions, broadswords, dao, spears, halberds and arrows of several designs. The basic versions of the melee weapons were set, and the next ones upcoming were the elemental weapons—Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, and Ether, the last one being considerably tricky due to its innate instability in present environment. He had to be doubly sure that the inner substance had been doubly reinforced and insulated from the outer shell just in case.

He had no affinity for any element, neither natural nor esoteric. The only thing he could do, was to create swords, and imbue them with concepts. Concepts that he comprehended using his left eye. Concepts he combined in patterns, altering them to produce deviations different from their idealized state of existences using his right eye, and finally, provide prana from his circuits to give them shape as a real mystic code.

The original blueprints were already, and now he needed to just focus on something else, something more fundamental to his own state of existence. Something he had been working on for the past couple of months. Progress had been definite, albeit slower than he had expected. That however, didn't matter at all.

Twenty-seven magic circuits flared, as mana from the ley line was drawn out into them, manufacturing prana for the magus seated right above the magic circle. His lips separated, as he began.

"**I am… the bone of my sword."**

* * *

**AN: And this is the second chapter. Hope you guys like it. Also, flamingsword108 is helping me out with beta-ing the chapter. Please post a review if you like it. **

**The next chapter of Legend will be posted by March 25, 2019.**


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